Transcription and Transliteration

Early Yiddish-American popular culture (magazines, sheet music, records, etc.) employed a chaotic, make-it-up-as-you-go-along system for transliterating Yiddish into English characters, rendering cataloging and retrieval difficult. The transliteration system used here is based on the fundamentals of the YIVO and Library of Congress systems except for words or names recognizable by their previously accepted spelling.

English

Yiddish

A

start

andersh

E

head

felt

Eh

mention

shmate

I (hard)

screed

vi, brider

I (soft)

is

git, biter

O

mother

vos

U (hard)

mood

du

U (soft)

full

unheyb

Ay

why, sky

dayn

Ey

they

zey

Oy

boy

koyl

Dzh

jet

fartuzhet

Kh

Bach

makh, trakht

NOTE: Words in italics indicate that the original was transliterated into English from Hebrew characters. Sentences in Yiddish will all begin with capital letters, as will proper names. Personal and professional names will be spelled as originally printed.